Jo Anne and Nancy just keep saying I take swipes at the poor. Nothing could be further from the truth. I do not blame the poor for their poverty or their low achievement. I blame the rich and their flunky politicians for the poverty and low results of the poor.

Can the poor be educated to the level of everyone else? The answer is an unqualified yes.

However this is not easy:

In the community

There needs to be much more attention to low birthweight babies who are much more likely to be poor and do badly in school, same with nutrition which is expensive, there needs to be more attention to vision and dental problems, higher welfare, EI and most of all more jobs. Housing needs and transportation need further attention.

In the eduction system:

Yes attention to literacy and numeracy but it is not nearly enough. We need much smaller classes in poor schools, much earlier and higher quality ECE/ELP, and later a focus of engaging curriculum based on THEIR OWN world view. Primary classes in poor neighbourhoods should be 12/1 ratio. In high school ‘streaming” needs to reduced and one day eliminated below grade 11.
University and college tuition needs to be phased out first for the poor, later for the middle class and finally for everyone.

You will not fix this problem with phonics.

Most black Americans believe Charles Murray is a racist due to his past publications where he “implied” black people were just not as intelligent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Murray_(author)

A-I am responding to Doug`s number 1 answer here.
B-There is undue collaboration at all levels to not act on the research.
C-Why?Is it collusion with business,the publishers,is it a desire that every professor wants to come up and get funded for their own research?
D-It should be reason for malpractice suits to continue to ignore life saving instruction.Illiteracy equals a black box.
E-Why do they continue to get away with it?

http://www.ncld.org/in-the-home/supporting-learning-at-home/especially-for-young-children/7-learning-to-read-a-call-from-research-to-action

POSTED ON BEHALF OF ROD CLIFTON, EDUCATION PROFESSOR EMERITUS, UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA

Today, your post on Margaret Wente’s op-ed is great.  Here is another point building on what she says.

The correlation between social economic status and educational achievement of students range between roughly .18 and .30, with the lower number being for achievement in mathematics, chemistry, and physics and the higher number being for achievement in languages.  The differences, of course, result from the fact that languages that are taught in school (English and French mainly) are also taught at home where upper class parents read to their children and play word games with them so that their understanding of language increases faster than lower class kids. 

When we look at these correlations another way, we see that the amount of variance explained (R squared) in academic achievement by social economic status, by itself, ranges from about 3% to 9%, leaving about 90% to be explained by other things.  Of course, one of the strongest other variables is the ability of the teachers, which Malcolm Gladwell has written about so well.  Looking at it this way, social economic status has a relatively large effect on the achievement of students when other variables are considered, but in the total scheme of things, the effect is rather small with teachers having an equal or larger impact than social economic status.  Finally, we have spent the last 60 years trying to figure out the effects of hundreds variables on the achievement of students.  The total variance that we have been (generally) able to obtain with 60 or 70 variables in the statistical models is about 35%.  In other words, all these variables only explain about 1/3rd of the variation in the students achievement leaving about 2/3rds for other things.  In the thousands of studies that have been conducted, we still do not know what these other things.  Some people have speculated that the remaining variance can be called “luck”, which means that the effects are unpredictable. 

So, what is the message from the research literature.  Sure, social economic status has a strong effect on academic achievement, particularly on subjects that parents teach, directly or indirectly, at home. Parents do not generally teach chemistry, math, and physics at home so teachers have larger effects on the achievement of students in all subjects, including language.  As such, good teachers can overcome the social economic status differences between students.

As such, schools should work on hiring excellent teachers, particularly for lower social economic status students.  Unfortunately, this is not generally done.  In order to improve the teachers in our schools, we should be more careful in selecting student teachers for admission to faculties of education; we need better programs in the faculties; and most importantly we need certification examinations, including a practical part like pilots have, before they receive their temporary teaching certification.  Then we need principals and superintendents to observe these young teachers over about 3 years to see if they are, in fact, competent, before they receive their permanent teaching certificate.

Since about 99% of the experts I read agree with me and 1% agree with you I don’t know how it continues.

Have you considered this possibility? You are wrong?

When everybody is against you, either they are all wrong or perhaps…. it is you.

There is nothing particularly wrong with the professors prescriptions except his assignment of a very small % to SES, most experts assign 60-80% to SES back to the Coleman Report.

Roughly speaking poor kids come to school with a vocabulary of less than 500 words where middle class kids arrive at kindergarten with a vocabulary of more than 1000 words, twice as well educated in language from day one. The process continues in the home, we are not done. The gap continues to widen.

This can only be offset by policies that actually favour the poor in radical ways in school, AKA compensatory education.

The road to improved vocabulary is learning to read,spell and write through proper methodology delivered by trained teachers.

The road to improved vocabulary is learning to read,spell and write through proper methodology delivered by trained teachers.

Don’t go way out on a limb there.

Your problem is what most experts believe is “proper” is not the same as you.

Too bad that it is not nearly enough.

I read the article, and than started to read the comments. I stopped at the second comment, that was all about the author and his bio.

The full title of the book is - “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010”
http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Apart-State-America-1960-2010/dp/0307453421

No wonder the majority of reviews written by those who come from the fictional town Belmont, dropped the last bit of White America. No wonder the majority of reviews do not point out the previous books of the author, Coming Apart.

Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America’s Schools Back to Reality

“Half of the children are below average. Many children cannot learn more than rudimentary reading and math. Yet decades of policies have required schools to divert resources to unattainable goals.”
http://www.amazon.com/Real-Education-Bringing-Americas-Schools/dp/0307405397/ref=pd_sim_b_1

Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life

“The Bell Curve describes the state of scientific knowledge about questions that have been on people’s minds for years but have been considered too sensitive to talk about openly—among them, IQ’s relationship to crime, unemployment, welfare, child neglect, poverty, and illegitimacy; ethnic differences in intelligence; trends in fertility among women of different levels of intelligence; and what policy can do—and cannot do—to compensate for differences in intelligence. Brilliantly argued and meticulously documented, The Bell Curve is the essential first step in coming to grips with the nation’s social problems.”
http://www.amazon.com/Bell-Curve-Intelligence-Structure-Paperbacks/dp/0684824299/ref=pd_sim_b_3

My point is, that the author of Coming Apart, is just another book, in an attempt to prove his hypothesis that the white race has the superior intelligence, as well as the better culture, to now that only the 20 percent earning the top wages are the smartest, the most hard working, and the best culture. The rest of us are lower class, and not much can be done.

In the Globe article at the end, ” ?The formation of the new upper class has been driven by forces that are nobody?s fault and resist manipulation,? he writes. ?The economic value of brains in the marketplace will continue to increase no matter what, and the most successful of each generation will tend to marry each other no matter what. As a result, the most successful Americans will continue to trend toward consolidation and isolation as a class.?

Intelligence comes into play. Hell, I would like a adverse weather event to whipped into his life, or an earthquake, and see how he and his kind handles the after effects. Better yet, put them in a middle of a war zone, and let us see how their kind of intelligence gets them out of the war zone, still in one piece. His version of the economic brains caused the global economic crisis, and it is left up to the other 80 percent to picked up the pieces.

Poverty or Murray’s astounding conclusion that there is nothing one can do, nor end is it anyone’s fault to justify the cultural gulf between the Belmont and the Fishtown folks. Even calling the town Fishtown, is a leftover distasteful snobbery of British culture, and the fishmongers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishmonger

“A modest proposal: schools should make teaching the three R?s their number one priority”

Sensible, cost effective, and instead of imposing white middle-class values of the nature that Murray has described in his book, teach the students the values that will help them to succeed in life, as well as improving their cognitive abilities that go hand in hand with intelligence. Policies should be shaped by the learning needs of the students for good outcomes, keeping in mind the many different SEC variables that impacts learning and achievement.

The best way I know from experience dealing with my child, and my own personal experience at school, a solid foundation in the 3 Rs, is the place to start at to improve all outcomes of children, no matter the income level.

Hey Doug, would you mind telling where you have taught and where you teach now?  No need to be specific, just ball-park it.  I think you must be in Ontario because of the political references to specific people, and the use of terms such as ECE and ELP.  I think ECE means Early Childhood Education doesn’t it?  What is ELP?  English Language (?)Placement??

  I teach in the far north of British Columbia and our classes are very like the ratio that you are talking about (even less in some cases).  The students here are very low ability and stricken with a whole battery of health issues.  I think that I work in the very type of school that you are often talking about, and I have daily experience of how extreme at-risk kids work.  Is your school like this too?

i’m taking this graph out of context, but i think it is worth thinking about:  http://hearinghub.ca/comprehension.png

it is from Torgesen et al. (2001), a study where they took the WORST readers from grade-3 LD classrooms and gave them 8 weeks of one-on-one reading instruction with top teachers, then followed them for two years.

these were severely disabled readers, the bottom 2%.  they had already failed at everything.  yet eight weeks - a mere snap of the fingers - and a quarter of them rejoined the mainstream classrooms; many becoming above-average readers.

the four lines are starting-achievement quartiles.  the axis is standard scores, so a positive slope means they were passing their peers.  what you can see is that the lowest-starting achievers never got there - they made huge absolute progress (remember - standard scores) but fell back from their peers.

Torgesen could not find any correlation between SES and achievement.  the question is whether another few weeks would have helped them more.

“We know this because a handful of schools are doing it”. Which schools are these? Let people know so we can learn from this.

Tom,you`re a breath of fresh air!

thanks jo-anne. 

i mistyped the axis, it was obviously ending-achievement quartiles.  but the effect size was staggering.

it is clear that SES and achievement are correlated, but correlation isn’t causation.  only an experiment, like Torgesen’s, gives insight into the ‘because’ questions.

luckily there are such experiments going on right now - the top charter schools in the US are demonstrating that it is not the kids (or their parents’ income) that are holding back achievement. 

not my area of expertise, but that does point some sharp questions at teachers.

one more thing.  the study trained 60 students at a cost of about $800K (call it $2M in current dollars).  over the two years, the top 40 percent (24 kids) exited the LD classrooms and returned to the mainstream.  considering they have a lifetime of earnings and taxpaying ahead of them, this seems like a fantastic investment.

So we will just do this for all slow readers eh? I think you can see the problems.

hi doug, that’s one way to look at it. 

the other way is that since there was demonstrably nothing wrong with these kid’s ability to learn, we should ask how schools failed to teach them.

No there was something seriously wrong with the kids that required a massive intervention. You can do it boot camp style or over a longer period but massive intervention was needed.

This is hardly the schools or teachers fault if this level of intervention was needed.

Below is a report, that includes Tom’s post on the study of the 60 students.

“Torgesen, J.K. (2006). Recent Discoveries from Research on Remedial Interventions for
Children with Dyslexia. In M. Snowling and C. Hulme (Eds.). The Science of Reading:
A Handbook. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers”

http://www.fcrr.org/publications/publicationspdffiles/Snowling_chapter.pdf

Torgesen, was my first researcher, that taught and educated me at time, that was a crucial time for my child and overall improvement in reading.

Tom is correct, they should be sharp questions being pointed at the public education system, and how they approached reading instruction, prevention and intervention for students.

Torgesen pointed out in the above link, as all of the top reading researchers have confirmed, that all parts of reading difficulties can be corrected, except in the areas of fluency. From what I have read over the years by the top researchers concerning dyslexia that fluency in reading is difficult to reach levels of good readers. So as it stands now the dyslexics will be slower readers but good readers,  if the students receives the interventions early. The need for alternative environments for taking tests, exams is a result of reading slower than the good readers, and is the number one accommodation for the dyslexics.

I became aware of the fluency problems early on, and I designed my own amateur attempts at improving fluency for my child. I had my child read chapter books at a couple grade levels below, large print books for the visually impair, newspapers, magazines, as well as using the MP3 player that had audio and text options. I believed it help to maintain her fluency level, to prevent a drop in fluency.

Real shame Doug, advocating for no intervention for students who are struggling in reading, because the other students are not getting the same intervention. Or do students have to meet the SEC criteria, and if not, it is up to the parents to seek private help.

There is nothing wrong with children’s ability at any income level, but the current research are slowing building another mountain of research indicating instruction, training and resources of the schools, there is a stronger relationship than the SEC factors. I have to say, after reading Torgesen on his other research, I concluded that the instruction that was received for my child in the primary grade, was high enough, to prevent failure in all core subjects. However, training should be strengthen in reading instruction, to pick up the kids who are learning to read by memorizing the words, because the students have low phonemic awareness. Learning to read by memorization of the words, will eventually fail for students, which is one of the major downfalls of the whole language approach and its many transformations.

Who opposes strong intervention? Nobody

“the other way is that since there was demonstrably nothing wrong with these kid?s ability to learn, we should ask how schools failed to teach them.”

Tom, that just makes too much common sense and doesn’t fit into Doug’s union talking points.

The future of education in Ontario does NOT lie with old union talking points or the hypocrisy of those who tout public for everyone else but who choose private for themselves.

If there was nothing wrong with them in the first place they would have learned at pace with their classmates. The fact that they needed massive intervention means there was something wrong in the first place.

Try to duplicate the project on a mass scale.

I chose public for my own child.

here’s a position that perhaps doug will agree with:
there is a mirror analogy between student achievement and teacher achievement. 

if students are not taught properly, they will often fail to learn successfully.  Torgesen suggests that 1% of students are probably hopeless cases; he refers to them as ‘treatment resistors’.  (it’s buried deep in his paper).  but the rest are victims of poor teaching.

but that is true for teachers too; if they are not trained properly, and their work is not supported with appropriate tools, then they will often fail to teach successfully.  there is rarely something ‘wrong’ with teachers, poor teachers are victims too.  and yes, there’s probably 1% of hopeless cases.

perhaps if we provided an intensive intervention for under-performing teachers - without recriminations or nasty pokes; they are no more ‘at fault’ than the students who were badly taught - and we supported that effort with much better professional development, we could dramatically improve our schools. 

it means suggesting that teachers are both the problem and the solution.

doug, how could we get there?

I agree with Tom.
I have many schools where this is the kind of teaching that takes place day one.

Like Jean Chall said,why wait till grade 3 and go for all that money you spend on testing and labeling all the failures,usually 40,50% when you can prevent the majority of the failure entirely.
The half a billion dollar longitudinal NICHD study did discover some new things on how we should be teaching but the Universities refuse to listen.

Tom your whole argument rests on the word “properly”. Schools feel they ARE teaching properly since Canada has among the world’s best reading 15 year olds.

Your definition of “properly” does not match that of most experts. They do not accept your definition.

And THAT, dear readers, is the problem.  Couldn’t be more succinct if we tried…

No they don`t.They ignore the research.
Phone Dr.Keith Stanovich.

The Universities and professors have a responsibility to train innocent well meaning teachers,they don`t do it.
Go speak to the grade 1-3 teachers in the public system,they`ll tell you how many children are failing by grade 3…not interested in your PISA…

And Finland…

“If there was nothing wrong with them in the first place they would have learned at pace with their classmates. The fact that they needed massive intervention means there was something wrong in the first place. “

The statement is so wrong Doug. The higher-income students, have parents that will send their children to private tutoring and other enrich activities as soon as they detect what they think is lower achievement for their children and if they think their children are struggling.

No secret on the parent sites and forums, one new expenditure that has now become part and parcel of raising a family, is the expenditures of private tutoring, for a few years, for many years to parents who purchased tutoring services when needed.

The parents with money, always state no point in waiting for the school to get their act together, when my child needs help now, and not six months to 2 years down the road

Once again Doug, you are taking swipes at all students, and questioning their ability and intelligence. What is next, attacked the parenting ability of high-income parents, just to keep away from discussing instruction, teaching training, and the resources of the schools.

Massive intervention of 8 weeks, that constitutes 62 hours. Amazing results, considering it was a pull-out program on one to one instruction. Private tutoring is in demand by the parents that can afford it, of this intensive nature. I would have love to have that opportunity for my child, but the service was 350 kms away from my home. The credit goes to the teachers and their training, in the same way when parents pay big bucks, they want results that show progress to moving up the ladder of progression. 

By the way Doug, massive intervention is needed for approximately 40 percent of students in any school when it comes to improvement in reading. The study that Tom provided, was for students who had problems in the phonological processes such as low phonemic awareness. The snag was the fluency bit, but since than there has been research on why fluency is a difficult to overcome, even though the other reading issues have been connected.

Where Joanne is correct, reading instruction needs to be change, to prevent the majority from needing massive intervention, or any other intervention throughout the school years. As well as the teacher training, that have so little information on why students have reading, writing and numeracy issues. I only wish it was the SEC factors, money would solve that, but it is not the case. Human beings with their flaws.

It can be duplicated, but first the teachers need to be trained. No reading recovery teachers need to apply.

doug:

i’m focused on reading disability; the 10%-15% of kids that get diagnosed as dyslexic.  the evidence is that skilled and appropriate teaching is both a preventative and a cure for reading disability; the fault is not in the student.

i’ve been heads-down studying the research on reading disability for two years, and i’m just starting to get my arms around it.  it’s not being taught, so i can’t fault a teacher who doesn’t know this stuff.  i’m sure there are a dozen other sub-disciplines of teaching that are just as complex.

we seem to agree that we could do better in reading if we invested more in training students, monitoring their outcomes, and proactively intervening.  i’m suggesting that we should also invest more in training teachers, monitor their outcomes, and proactively intervene when help is needed.

can we agree on that?  if so, how do we get there?

SINCE the vast majority of children in the very same classes DID learn to read, the fault is not in the universities, the methods, the teachers or the schools.

The fault lies in the poverty, low birthweight, nutrition, no reading to kids at home, few books in the home, few role models, frequent moves, dental and vision problems, FAS, need I go on. The vast majority that have reading problems by grade 3 are POOR.

You have been on a reserve! The Fraser Institute labelled one school “the worst school in BC” due to wait for it-test scores.

CBC decided to send Mark Kelly to investigate. Naturally it was a reserve school, the kids suffered FAS, the attendance was terrible, the mothers also could not read, the children were undernurished, low birthweight, and all of the factors David Berliner isolates.

The two women teachers were totally loved by the community. Kelly attempted to teach some lessons. Nobody paid the slighted attention, homework was never done, kids just doodled when assigned work, he came to the conclusion that “the worst school in BC” probably had 2 of the best teachers he had ever seen.

Yes this is the far end of the poverty spectrum but not that far. This school had all of the characteristics common in poor schools.

It is the easiest thing in the world to say “just shut up and teach the kids to read.” It is the hardest thing to actually accomplish.

It is easy to walk across the Niagara gorge on a tightrope as well. Just take your time, put one foot in front of the other and keep your balance. Oh it is not so easy?

The reform movement is full of Monday morning quarterbacks who could not teach a dog to come in out of the rain with a pork chop.

Big talkers but you can’t do it.

Nancy, one kid at a time doesn’t count.

Sooo wrong Nancy, the higher income parents do not send the kids for extra help because they detect something wrong. There is seldom anything wrong. The use of private tutorials by higher income people is to “give their kid an edge” over the competition.

Tom, the time to deal with teachers is pre-service. After they start to teach they deeply resent being told what to do by anyone. Eyes roll. They resent it FAR more from those without a teaching certificate who’s opinions they dismiss out of hand.

If you cannot persuade universities to change you need to save your breath.

“there is a mirror analogy between student achievement and teacher achievement.”

exactly right Tom. As clear as day and something that parents, employers and post-secondary institutions have been on to for quite some time. Also, anyone who tutors and has to pick up the pieces of what’s left when the educators fails the student.

Linking the research is what’s missing in the media and what gets lost amid the spin. That needs to change.

Spoken like a true non-professional.

A slander on teachers. No wonder you have no teacher support.

http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/edu/hedcew5-53.000/hedcew5-53.htm

Every professor is allowed to do their own thing,without consequence;except for the consequence of failure when the teachers get to the classroom.

there is a mirror analogy between student achievement and teacher achievement.?

exactly right Tom. As clear as day and something that parents, employers and post-secondary institutions have been on to for quite some time. Also, anyone who tutors and has to pick up the pieces of what?s left when the educators fails the student.

Linking the research is what?s missing in the media and what gets lost amid the spin. That needs to change.

Posted by Chuck on 01/31 at 03:39 PM

If that is not teacher bashing I have never seen teacher bashing.

Every professor is allowed to do their own thing,without consequence;except for the consequence of failure when the teachers get to the classroom.

The results have been great. Our 15 year olds are only out-read by Finland. Can we do better? Everybody can do better but we are the best readers in the English speaking world - not bad.

http://www.oecd.org/document/24/0,3746,en_32252351_46584327_46609752_1_1_1_1,00.html

Here is how we can do even better say the world’s experts.

Two billion plus tutoring industries, and the major customers for tutors are the parents who have the excess cash and the means.

Walk into them Doug, and see who is taking lessons. No secret, or look out in the parking lot and what models of cars. I have to laugh, most of the tutoring that is taking place across Canada, and it is the bread and butter part of the tutoring industry is remediation on the 3 Rs. There also the parents that can’t abide the long wait lists for assessments, and books an appointment in the private sector, and than returns to the school to present the report, who must hold an IEP meeting. The signatures and posts on the WISE site, is quite the collection of parents sending their kids to the tutors for basic remediation on math. One can state parents are sending their kids to have an edge, but if an edge is to spend money on tutoring, or doing it at home to teach the basics and a firm foundation so the kids do not have trouble dealing with algebra and trig, is an advantage. The remediation that took place at my home, certainly give my child an edge, she finally could complete with the other 9 top achievers in math. It would not have happen if I did not give her an edge that spells remediation and solid foundation.

Nobody, goes to a tutor, just to have their kids being tutored on the identical current math curriculum and instruction, which is why the kids are going to the tutor in the first place, to correct the many deficiencies of the current math curriculum and instruction. After all, that would be throwing money away, and parents want results in higher achievement scores at schools.

You ought to hear the stories from tutors. from all over the Western countries, especially the English speaking countries. Quite something, to read, and an education on what to look for in a tutor. Tutors is a high growth industry in the rural parts of Canada, and a lot of retired teachers are becoming part of the tutoring business. And they are certainly not teaching the same way as they did in the schools. Too bad there was no tutors to be had when my child was smaller, and I even advertised willing to pay $30 a hour. I wanted two hour sessions for reading instruction, but no takers. Today, much different I would have no problem finding a retired teacher, but the problem is in the rural areas there is not enough tutors for the demand. Doug, $240 per month is a typical car payment, and worth it to a lot of families in rural parts to make do with their old car, and pay for tutoring lessons.

When children are struggling in learning, they need help now, and not two years later, when the student is so far behind, the school ends up socially promoting the student, and than dumb down the course outcomes, because the student no longer has the ability to keep up with the rest of the class.

Once again, you are are attempting to shift the focus unto the students, the terrible parents, and anything else to shift focus away from the school and the self-serving agendas within, of the adults .
Tutoring is no longer a luxury for most families, but that was bound to happen, when a public education system sees fit not to provide the solid foundation for all students to stand on. Bound to happen when the very systems creates very long wait lists for access to education services beyond the classroom. And bound to happen in an inclusive classroom, where the teacher does not have the training to meet the individual needs of his or her students.

There is no blame for teachers. Blame is poverty.

Poor children are far more likely to have Learning Disabilities and other health problems.

http://www.firstcallbc.org/pdfs/economicequality/3-nat’lreportcard.pdf

Malkin and Doretta,

A learning disability which we now know in the case of Reading and Spelling is a teaching disability is not and has never been caused by poverty. It is a genetic
difference characterized by a deficiency in chromosome 6.FASD is a different matter,it causes severe learning problems and while not strictly characterized by poverty it certainly is exacerbated in those environments.
Seeing as Doug is inflaming his excuses I`m out of this discussion.

Adult literacy sites show how badly our citizens are doing,my theory is those problems are manufactured in the PS system.
Most employers continue to be flabbergasted by the lack of spelling,grammar and math ability of their newly graduated employees.
Shameful.

One more thing,teachers are happy with their jobs,pensions and benefits.

For many,the loss of professionalism has hurt their job morale.

For many,they do nothing but complain about parents.

Go see Mr.Lazaar,those teachers actually used to exist,now they exist in private schools.

http://www.ncsall.net/?id=278

After just reading the student who took a picture of the teacher sleeping in the classroom, and for his troubles the students gets suspended; only to read Doug’s posts of misconceptions.

Doug, LD is a general term, much abuse by the education establishment, as the term development delay. Lots of discussion by the experts on changing the LD definition, to a more specific one that excludes children with learning deficits cause by environmental factors. A few days back, I read an article, where dyslexia was called a disease. Nothing surprises me when the educrats open up their mouths.

The next link titled - The Effects of Poverty On Children

“As reported in Table 1, children living below the poverty threshold are 1.3 times as likely as nonpoor children to experience learning disabilities and developmental delays. Reliable measures of cognitive ability and school achievement for young children in the Children of the NLSY and IHDP data sets have been used in a number of studies to examine the relationship between cognitive ability and poverty in detail.6,24-26 This article reports on several studies that control for a number of potentially important family characteristics and attempts to distinguish between the effects of long- and short-term poverty.”

What lower income children are at greater risk for learning deficits, to which a public school can do a lot concerning the risk of learning deficits of children with lower income. Changing practices such as reading instruction, to improve and eliminate learning deficits impacted by the environment. Note, that the community supports outside of the family home, plays a major role. A public library, is one such beast, or a community youth centre, which are always in danger of having government funding reduce.  The distance of community supports from the community must be considered as well. It is about access Doug, to supports that lie outside of the family home, and schools are the best ones to know the information, and not some educrat, miles removed from the community, staring at numbers, putting his own particular bias and incomplete knowledge base to make the decisions.

Low-income children are at greater risk for learning deficits than the higher income children, but low-income children are at the same risk as the other higher income children, for developmental learning disabilities, autism, and other disorders. The public education system does a super job at labeling students, but a poor job at tending to the learning deficits of students, regardless if the cognitive deficits was acquired by the environment or the child had the deficit from birth.  A poor job at instruction and remediation of the learning and cognitive deficits that gets in the way of learning and achievement.

If anything, the public education structure is not designed for children with learning deficits, because it would require change within the practices of the education system. Changes that would not be conducive for the best interests and agendas of the stakeholders within the public education system.

Doug is typical of others within the education, thinking that it is never the fault of the education policies and practices, their biases and beliefs. Using the stats and science knowledge to either prevent children from accessing education services beyond the classroom or to put limits on who can and who cannot access education services.

Even sadder yet, the research conducted in Canada in the 1950s and the 1960s on children, by the provincial education ministries across Canada, is the research that is still being used as the main support for the current practices regarding instruction and education policies concerning children with learning struggles. More importantly, the research studies forms in part, the pedagogical theories of special education that are taught in the Canadian teacher faculties and world wide to my surprise.

Thanks largely to Doug, I re-framed my search words because I was one of the children that took part in 10 specific studies, and was reported to me by the principal and head guidance counselor when I was almost 18 years old.  The studies and reports are buried so deeply in the education of ministries, I have only uncovered the two big ones, and now in the process of obtaining a copy, because there is no access via the Internet. No wonder children with learning struggles, the odds are against them for reaching their full potential, as well as being at a greater risk for weak literacy and numeracy skills.

jo-anne:

most teachers have the same understanding of reading disability as doug (sometimes the details of who or what to blame are different). 

there is no fault with the teachers, or doug.  if the university education faculties don’t step up and teach from theory and research, then there is no reason to expect this knowledge to move into practice.

doug’s views may infuriate us, but they are commonplace.  when we discuss politics, he is more likely correct than not.  he does us a favor by challenging us bluntly.

Below a new study released, on attention deficits in K students.

“?There are important life risks associated with attention deficits in childhood, which include high-school dropout, unemployment, and problematic substance abuse. Pagani said. ?Our findings make a compelling case for early identification and treatment of attention problems, as early remediation represents the least costly form of intervention. Universal approaches to bolstering attention skills in kindergarten might translate into stable and productive pathways toward learning.? The researchers noted that the next step would be to undertake further study into how specifically the classroom environment influences children’s attention spans.”
http://www.nouvelles.umontreal.ca/udem-news/news/20120130-lifelong-payoff-for-attentive-kindergarten-kids.html

Classroom environment, and I believe plays a greater role in either aggravating attention or improving attention in students.

Tom,
The teachers are innocent,the faculties are corrupt.

I asked a few days ago,what is it?
I believe it`s ego.they view reading instruction pedagogy as playing,a creative art.

I also said a few days ago that the LD association in Canada is pathetic.They should be defunded,they do more harm than good.They also are “funding"politicians.

A God send is the Ontario based IDA,International Dyslexia Association chapter,they are for more scientific and research oriented.

I commend you by the way,yes,the politics are staggering,what is it?
They are allowed to ignore research.
Remember Reid Lyon`s words,“if we knew as much about Aids or Cancer and we did nothing”......

I posted a link to the report to the Feds by Dr Dennis Raphael a friend of Dr Bennets.

Do an internet search of “Poverty and Learning Disabilities” and you will see a massive number of studies and reports linking the two.

If you want to see people “infuriated” then have amateur parents telling teachers that they do not understand reading.

BTW the teacher bashing is hitting an all time high on this and recent threads.

Teacher a) do what OISE/UT and the MOE tell them to do and b) hardly believe a bunch of amateurs about reading or teaching.

Of course poverty does not CAUSE LD but exacerbates it. But then again there is little in the poverty profile that causes poor learning results, it is all exacerbation. LBW, FAS, nutrition, dental vision and on and on.

Think of them as sub-lethal toxins that reach a critical mass and stunt the intellectual growth of poor children.

The “reform” movement makes a serious error by not listing poverty as the #1 education problem. All of your credibility problems stem from this ideological blind spot.

Conclusion:

On reading and special education you are simply NOT believed.

Doug is typical of others within the education, thinking that it is never the fault of the education policies and practices, their biases and beliefs.

And Nancy is from the “blame the teacher first” crowd. There are no bad parents, there are no lazy children, there are no genetic problems there is no poverty link, denial, denial denial.

This often comes from SE parents who have tutored one child at a time, usually their own flesh and blood, and then said “if I can make some progress with this child why can’t they?”

Try a whole class sometime. Better yet, try a class in a poor neighbourhood or a Rez.

Good luck with that.

One or even a group of academics is not nearly enough. Mark Holmes touted testing, so what, it is a dismal failure as NCLB shows.

The overwhelming majority of professors and researchers need to take a certain POV first, convince the politicians and the media that we need to change course and then maybe some very small things start to change.

You are nowhere near stage one.

In closing, I think it is time to reiterate Malkin’s thoughts in the original blog post:

“On the one hand, it is probably unfair and unrealistic to expect schools to completely overcome such entrenched problems. On the other hand, we can?t just throw up our hands in despair and condemn unlucky poor kids to oblivion.

“It seems to me that the best shot at lifting kids out of poverty is to equip them with good basic skills - especially the ability to read, write, and add up. Without these skills, they have virtually no chance. With these skills, other things become possible.”

That said, time to move on to the next topic readers.

Sorry, I forgot to include the link on the Effects of Poverty of Children

http://www.princeton.edu/futureofchildren/publications/journals/article/index.xml?journalid=53&articleid=287&sectionid=1889

It is in keeping with the medical and science research and the implications of education of children.

Another lack of focus, is the toxic society that everyone is exposed, and in particular the pesticides and chemicals in our food. Has no bearing with income levels, because toxins are found everywhere in the environment.

Very few parents go around telling teachers how to instruct, but they do tell teachers where they are going wrong with their children. As well, parents resent being told in so many ways that they are incapable of understanding the complicated business of education, and than the school has their hand out, asking for money from parents, and if not, expect parents to spend 2 to 3 hours re-teaching the lessons of the day, so their children can do the homework. If not, pay back time, in the form of a telephone call, why their child did not do her homework.

And Doug, the identified LD population the greatest percentage identified fall into the higher income groups, as opposed to the lower-income groups. On top of the other stat, that 10 to 15 percent of the population have learning disabilities. And yet the public education system only identifies 5 to 6 percent of the LD students. Ditto for the other invisible disorders, where the students are either misdiagnosed or never have been identified.

Now for the increase LD stats in lower income schools, and for a whole on low-income students, are students who have reading disorders cause by instruction practices. The environment factors, confounds and masks the need for reading remediation.

The real shame, it creates a hardship for students of low-income, that have been identified with or without assessments. The hardship comes in the future, entering post-secondary only to discovered that they don’t have a learning disability, but a reading problem. Therefore, a reading problem does not qualified for accessing special services in a post-secondary institute. The other side of the coin, there is always a few first year university /college students learned for the first time that they have a learning disability.

Doug, it is the attitude of some within the education system, being dismissive of parents and other outsiders, including the experts that lie outside the education system, The collective experiences of parents is what generates much of the research in special education and learning disorders. Why do a lot of children who are identified with LD, experience immense difficulties in tying laced shoes, or reading the analog clock or holding of the pencil in the fist?  Or the research being conducted why LD children can’t do easy in math, but are highly capable of doing complicated math that incorporates the easy math? My child pass math, in the primary grades and help her to keep her grades in the 60s. The hard copies of her tests in primary is a testament of ‘she could not do 2 + 6’, but on the second page of the tests, all the correct answers on more advance math. 2 + 6 - 3 + 1 was always right. Even the teachers wonder why, and at first it was carelessness on her part, but once she was identified as having LD, they too question it, and try to implement strategies to prevent it. The question has not been answer yet, but the researchers will keep plodding along , using kids like my child, as their testing subjects.

The importance of the research outside of the public education systems, are often ignored for political agendas and self-serving interests.of those within the education system. Worse yet, much of the research can be directly applied to the education of children, and in particular the classroom. A few months back Doug, I thank a teacher for the effort being put out that benefited my 16 year old,  but his response to me, ” No, it is you that I should be thanking, because you did all the hard work, that made my job a whole lot easier, that afforded the time to look up the research links that I provided.  The same research links that are not found in any public education site at any level, and especially in the education faculties. Today, the same teacher called my 16 year to see him after class, because she can’t do easy, and needs to be taught explicitly. He learned it from the research links, and can be applied to any student in the classroom. Very useful information Doug, and should be heeded by the teaching faculties as well as board and ministry staff. It does help to prevent low achievement on tests, and that is the point of school, to reach the full potential of all students. Or is that all talk from the public education system?